Playboy's John Dempsey Cartoons Magazine

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John Dempsey may be best known for the infinite variety he has wrought on the theme of nudism; nevertheless he is also a piquant practitioner of humor with its pants on. Beginning with PLAYBOY'S first year, readers of the magazine have relished the caprices of his characters—his sleepy-eyed, amplitudinous girls; his carrot-nosed, mustached men, their seeming insouciance masking a subtle but unmistakable leer.
Dempsey's determination to "draw love, not war" makes him particularly suited to PLAYBOY, as does his avoidance of such tired themes as the family budget, Junior's report card, or dear old Dad's bumbling ineptitude—cartoon staples of the family-oriented "general" magazines. Dempsey's cartoons, reflecting and complementing their PLAYBOY showcase, are masculine in viewpoint, urbane in tone, sophisticated and contemporary in the zestful candor of their laserlike wit.
Of the nudist cartoons for which he has become famous (there are 45 of them in this book), Dempsey says, "These take place in an imaginary nudist club, not a nudist camp—in lush surroundings, without dust, perspiration, mud, pimples, sunburn, noisy kids, quiet kids, grandmothers, and so on. From the lovely potted flowers conveniently placed in front of the men's groins to the invisible bras worn by the girls, it is a fantasy world without violence, greed, ugliness, pollution or boredom."
Dempsey doesn't remember exactly what got him started on the nudist idea ("probably just a handy device for drawing the nude female figure, at first") but, encouraged by PLAYBOY, "I found myself creating a specific place occupied by certain people." With a mischievous smile strongly reminiscent of the men in his drawings, he adds, "Incidentally, I quite often include friends of mine in the nudist cartoons." The question most often asked of him is: Have you ever been inside a nudist camp? "The answer is no."
Not a fast worker, Dempsey may take more than a week to convert one "rough" into a finished color cartoon, and if some small detail displeases him, he is apt to throw away the entire drawing and start from scratch, sometimes achieving an improvement that may be so subtle it is visible only to his eye. Eschewing the watercolors and acrylics favored by other cartoonists, Dempsey's color work is done in a medium known as Dr. Martin's dyes. One result of his stylized approach to color is a distinctive, deliberately non-naturalistic flesh tone he calls "shocking pink." Another personal trademark is his way of rendering female breasts—fellow cartoonists admiringly refer to them as "dempseys."
He usually starts work around seven or eight in the morning and stays at it until about one in the afternoon. "I try to keep regular hours," he says, "but I find myself inclined to participate in activities other than sitting at the drawing board or stretching out on the idea couch. However, I feel that personal experiences contribute greatly to my work, so I tell myself I'm really working all the time, even when I'm playing golf."
Although his friend and colleague Virgil ("Vip") Partch describes him as a "clean-cut Arizona cowboy type," he is actually that rare bird, a native Californian, who was born and raised in the Los Angeles area and now makes his home in Laguna Beach. "I became interested in sex at an early age," he avers, "and interested in horses later on, riding and drawing them." Many of Dempsey's high school art-class assignments were fulfilled with sketches of the sleek and haughty thoroughbreds he loved to watch at the Santa Anita stables.
Art was destined to take a back seat for a time, however, while Dempsey, after graduating from high school, worked as a surveyor in Central America, on the Pan American Highway, and in Alaska.
Then came World War Two, and again artistic interests were obliged to play second fiddle when Dempsey joined the Navy Seabees.
His graphic gifts were not to go unnoticed or unappreciated by the Navy, however, for he became a staff artist for the official Seabee magazine. This brought him to the attention of the editors of the famous Tank, and his early cartoons appeared in its pages, lightening the grim lives of servicemen all over the South Pacific theater of operations.
Dempsey's stretch with the Seabees made him eligible for the G. I. Bill; when the War ended, he enrolled at the Chouinard Art Institute of Los Angeles.
As he studied, his personal tastes began to form—his love of music ("everything from modern jazz to weepy Irish ballads"); his fascination with Picasso and other great painters; his admiration for the best of the established cartoonists: the late Peter Arno, William Steig, Virgil Partch. "Three wonderful draftsmen," says Dempsey, referring to the trio he feels had the most profound influence on his own work. "Arno's great composition and use of black and white. Steig's understanding of people. Partch's wild imagination."
During his last year at the Institute, he made his first professional cartoon sale to the late Gurney Williams of the late Collier's. "Bless his heart," says Dempsey, "he gave me my first big break. After that, I began to sell to the Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, Look, Better Homes and Gardens and, in 1954, to a brand-new magazine called PLAYBOY."
That first PLAYBOY sale of Dempsey's appeared in the December 1954 issue. It was a small black-and-white cartoon, the scene was a bookstore, and the characters were a girl (sleepy-eyed, amplitudinous) and a man (carrot-nosed, mustached, his seeming insouciance masking a subtle but unmistakable leer) who inquired of her, "How would you like to curl up with a good bookworm some evening?" Shortly after that beginning, Dempsey started to contribute the full-page, full-color work which quickly made him one of PLAYBOY'S most popular cartoonists.
"Sometimes," says Dempsey, "I believe that half the men in the country, at least, if they had a choice, would like to be cartoonists. It's very gratifying work. Whenever I tell people I'm a cartoonist, their eyes sort of light up and they smile. People love cartoons."
And we are confident you will love this book containing 160 pages of cartoons, nudist and otherwise, most in full color, all by the inimitable John Dempsey.

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